Forensic Studies 005: Terry Blair

Terry Blair became a serial killer after killing seven people before being incarcerated for the rest of his life (Dolan Media Newswires. 2008). Blair grew up in a household of troubled individuals who had too much of an influence on Blair due to the fact that he committed these family members committed similar crime prior to Blair’s crimes.

The oldest child of 10 siblings born to mother Janice who had only a ninth grade education, Blair suffered from mental illness. Janice fatally shot a man to death but was sentenced to probation after entering an Alford Plea of guilty. This type of plea is where an individual admits the evidence is there, but denies having committed the crime.

Blair’s family had many encounters with the criminal justice system. His brother Walter, while in jail, was propositioned to kill a woman for six thousand dollars. This was so she could not testify in court at that man’s rape trial (she was the victim). Blair confessed to the abduction and the shooting of the woman and was convicted of murder and was executed in 1993 (Dolan Media Newswires. 2008).

Blair’s half brother Clifford Miller was convicted in the 1992 abduction of a woman from a bar. He shot the woman, drove her to an abandoned house where he raped her repeatedly, beat her until she passed out, and left her there to die. She suffered a gunshot wound, fractured skull, broken jaw and broken cheek bones. She spent two months in the hospital, recovering. Foir this crime Miller was sentenced to two life sentences plus 240 years for charges including kidnapping and forcible sodomy.

Dolan Media Newswires (2008) reports that Terry Blair murdered Angela Monroe and avoided the death penalty by agreeing to waive his right to a jury trial. He was sentenced to 25 years and spent 21 years incarcerated. He had been released for only two months when he started killing again. A parole violation sent him back to prison.

Blair was charged with eight counts of first degree murder, one count of first-degree assault, and three counts of forcible rape. These charges would carry life in prison of the death penalty (Missouri Revised Statutes, 2010). Blair was convicted of killing those six women and was also accused in two other murders of Sandra Reed and Nellia Harris, an assault, and three rapes. Blair received a life sentence in prison with no possibility of parole. He is currently housed in the Potosi Correctional Center in Mineral Point, Missouri.

According to court records he was angry with Monroe for performing acts of prostitution (Dolan Media Newswires. 2008). Autopsy’s showed that Blair’s preferred killing method was strangulation. The motive is still unknown. The only thing to go by are the characteristics Blair demonstrates.

The characteristics of serial killers are measured or investigated individually to find out why they kill people. Majority of reported and investigated serial killers are white males, from a lower-to-middle-class background, usually in their late twenties to early thirties, but Terry Blair is a black man with the other characteristics matching. Statistics do show that there are African-American, Asian, and Hispanic serial killers as well.

Criminal profiler Pat Brown states that the “serial killers are always white” myth might have become “truth” in some research fields due to the over-reporting of white serial killers in the media (Pelisek, C. 2009). Brown estimates that 13 and 22 percent of serial killers are African American. Brown believes that white and pretty female victims are the targets of white male offenders, so this can explain how Blair targeted black women.

Typical characteristics of serial killers include: Intelligence, trouble staying employed and tend to work in menial jobs, unstable families, abandoned by their fathers and raised by domineering mothers, have criminal, psychiatric and alcoholic histories, were abused as a child by a family member, have high suicide attempts, were bed wetter’s, interested in porn early in life, fire setting, torturing animals as a child, being bullied, and involved in petty crimes (Kari & Associates. 2009).

The FBI states that some serial murderers often seem normal having families and a steady job, considered a pillar of the local community, no previous criminal record, have a successful and respected career, and appear to be normal and often quite charming. These individuals suffer from traits within a specific cluster of dysfunctional personality characteristics. These individuals lack empathy and guilt, are egocentric and impulsive, and theoretically do not conform to social, moral and legal norms. Instead, they follow a distinct set of rules which they have created for themselves, but adapt to their surroundings. Their lowered self-esteem helps develop their fantasy world in which they are in control (Kari & Associates. 2009).

Individuals kill for different reasons. The killings relate to their fetish, dislike, or what makes them angry. If the individual had early childhood trauma like abused in the home, then the outcome could create a homicidal individual. Maternal overprotected individuals, combined with the lack of paternal influence, could result in the development of many sexually violent men (Kari & Associates. 2009).

Terry Blair’s method for killing was strangulation. Age was not a factor because the women ranged from the ages of 25-58. Blair did have a single mother household, so maybe this is why he took out his anger on women. Blair’s son reported that Blair killed one woman because she had stolen his car once. This says that Blair was an individual that killed for revenge and anger seeing that he allegedly killed Monroe because she was a prostitute or performing prostitute type activities.

2 Comments

What is it with this system? His Mother Murders her Husband and gets probation? He Murders his Wife and gets paroled and nothing is being done to the Politicians and Judges that keep releasing these animals, And Nobody even asks WHY? I would Love it if a politician or Judge could answer these questions;